[Resolved/Fixed] Email sender name “WordPress” can’t be changed

Update:  We found that “WP Mail From II”  works later in the day after we wrote this blog post. The 4th plugin is the charm in this case. We  just added the links to the non-working plugins below.

On the customer service front, Drew from WP Engine called us over the weekend and suggested “WP Change Default” that worked for him. I definitely give Drew and WP Engine props for reaching out with a possible solution.

Rant Warning! We’re been working on a client project hosted on WP Engine and we noticed the email notifications to both admins and public users are being sent as “WordPress.” We always think there’s a “plugin for that.” So we tried out 3 different plugins (WP Default Sender Email, WP Simple Mail Sender, and CB Mail Sender)  from the WP.org repo and none of them worked. Out of the 3 only CB Mail Sender was recently updated (3 months ago vs. 1 year ago).

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Next we found two code snippets to insert into the parent theme and none of them worked. We went back and forth with WP Engine support but in the end they’re claiming it it’s “out of the scope.”

How could something basic as the email notification sender name being called generically “WordPress” instead of the site or business name be “out of scope?” They recommended switching to a 3rd party SMTP provider.

I would argue most people would see this is a basic business customization for email identification! At the very least they should label it the name of the site instead of “WordPress.”

This is not the first time we’ve ran into WP Engine not wanting to address seemingly such a basic issue. We used to recommend WP Engine to our many clients and have helped over 5 of them signup with WPE but this might be the last straw for us for future recommendations. . (New: We’d like to keep WP Engine on their toes for whatever it’s worth to help make sure the customers get the help they need – within reason of course 😉

Sociable Pro Plugin customer service: FAIL

One of the first social sharing plugin tools for WordPress was Sociable. It’s a plugin that adds a bunch of little icons at the bottom of your posts so your readers can share it with their friends on various social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Delicious .When WordPress 3.0 was released, developer “tompokress” took it over. He/she currently offers a “Pro” upgrade package sold through WPPlugins.com/WPMUdev.org.

I recently made the mistake of upgrading to Sociable Pro version for $10ish which includes a quarterly support subscription through WPplugins.com/WPMUdev.org. After I had problems getting it to work on Genesis child themes and Caroline theme, I attempted to contact the developer through WPMUdev.org but I then saw he hadn’t answered anyone’s questions for a month.

So I asked WPPlugins.com/WPMUdev.org to help facilitate communication with the developer, their answer was “it’s not our job, you should try to contact the developer yourself.” I find it kind of funny it was their job to take my money and setup a quarterly subscription but they think it’s not their job to make sure their developers are responsive to paying customers in a timely manner?

At this point it’s not the $10 but the attitude that irks me of any company and/or customer service support representative that tries to pass the buck.

I admit I hate it when I get bad customer service from a company “associated” with the WordPress platform. I have gotten great support from Graph Paper Press, Elegant Themes, various ThemeForest authors, StudioPress and more, so it steams me when companies don’t follow through on their commitments.  End of rant.